ICC Champions Trophy - 5 reasons why South Africa lost to India

3. Excessive use of the short ball:

It’s become a well known theory in international cricket that Indian batsman can’t play the short ball. The South African bowlers blindly bowed down to this theory and peppered the Indian openers with short stuff, much to their own suffering. What they did not realise is that this team has a different brand of batsmen. Except for Suresh Raina, no other batsman is particularly inept against the short ball and especially not Rohit Sharma. Sharma was dealt some heavy blows to the short ball and even though Ryan Mclaren managed to hit a few helmets, there was no considerable damage done.